In this handout photo provided by the Oprah Winfrey Network, Oprah Winfrey, right, speaks with Lance Armstrong during an interview Monday in Austin, Texas.

The Journal provides minute-by-minute analysis of both nights of the telecast of Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Lance Armstrong. Guest blogger Fred Dreier offers commentary on the interview with contributions from Journal reporters and editors. Follow the Journal’s live stream here.

After nearly 15 years of denials, Lance Armstrong is expected to address alegations that he used performance enhancing drugs during his career as a professional cyclist in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. The interview, which was taped on Monday, was so long that it’s been split into two broadcasts, and will air Thursday and Friday nights at 9 p.m. EST on Winfrey’s OWN network.

Armstrong lost his seven Tour de France titles this fall, after the United States Anti-Doping Agency submitted a 1,000-page report on, what it called, the “sophisticated and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.” Armstrong also received a lifetime ban from competition.

Armstrong has said he was the “most tested athlete in history” during his years of denials.

Good evening, the interview should begin in about 10 minutes or so. This is Armstrong’s first lengthy television interview aimed at addressing doping since 2005, when he went on CNN’s Larry King Live to deny allegations.

Oprah opens the show. Oprah is reading from a blue cue card. She says there are “no holds barred” and no rules for the interview. Her first question, “Yes or no, did you ever take banned substance to enhance your cycling performance.”

Armstrong answers yes. Says he doped in all seven Tour de France victories.

Armstrong says he first doped earlier in his career with cortisone. “The EPO generation began for me in the mid 1990′s.”

“This is too late, this is too late for probably most people, and that is my fault,” Armstrong says. “I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times. It wasn’t as if I said ‘No’ and then just moved off of it… This story was so perfect for so long.”

Armstrong says that U.S. Anti Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygar’s accusation that the U.S. Postal Service doping program was the most sophisticated in sports history false. “It was very conservative. It was very risk averse. But to say that program was bigger than the East German doping program in the 1980′s?”

Oprah is asking Armstrong to describe how his dopoing program worked. Armstrong appears uncomfortable and fidgets in his chair.

“I viewed it as very simple… my cocktail was only EPO, not a lot, transfusions and testosterone, which in a weird way I almost justified because of my history, having testicular cancer, surely I was running low.”

Oprah asks if he was afraid of getting caught.

“Uh no, drug testing has evolved,” he says. “In the old days they only tested you at the races. For most of my career there wasn’t that much out of competition testing.”

Armstrong has already done a complete 180 from his denials in the Larry King interview in 2005. When Bob Costas asked him about doping, Armstrong responded, saying he would not dope due to the health risks.

“Listen, I’ve said it for seven years. I’ve said it for longer than seven years. I have never doped. I can say it again. But I’ve said it for seven years. It doesn’t help. But the fact of the matter is I haven’t. And if you consider my situation: A guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence, why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again? That’s crazy. I would never do that. No. No way.”

Armstrong says he did not dope during his comeback to racing from 2009-2011. He said the last time he doped was 2005. “Absolutely not,” he says when Oprah asks him whether he doped during the comeback.

Armstrong again talks about allegations from his former teammates that he forced them to dope. Tyler Hamilton made several references to this in his book “The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France”

Oprah asks if he could fire his riders.

“If someone on the team says ‘I’m not going to dope,’ Absolutely not,” he says. “I guess I could, but I never did.” Armstrong said a verbal directive to dope never existed.

Oprah asks if he was a bully.

“Yeah,” Armstrong says with a shaky voice. “I was a bully. I tried to control the narrative.”

Armstrong has admitted to using drugs while being team leader of the U.S. Postal Team. But according to World Anti-Doping Agency Chairman David Howman, this admission has no legal substance, and therefore cannot lessen his lifetime ban. “We fall in the category of the world and we wait to see it. It doesn’t make any difference to the ban he is facing. This will not lead to any reconsideration or rehearing.” Howman told the Daily Telegraph.

Armstrong and Oprah view a videotape from 2005 when he denies getting doping advice from Italian doctor Michele Ferrari. Oprah asks if Ferrari was the leader and mastermind behind the team’s doping program.

“No, I’m not comfortable talking about other people. It’s all out there.”

“The win at all cost,” Armstrong says. “The level that it went to is a flaw. That defiance, that attitude, that arrogance, you cannot deny it. You watch that clip, that is an arrogant person. I say ‘look at that arrogant prick,’ I say that today.”

A question still left unanswered is why Armstrong is choosing to come out now. Remember, he had multiple chances to cooperate with the Usada investigation, and according to a WSJ story by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O’Connell, even met with Usada CEO Travis Tygart within the last month. He did not admit during the meeting.

Oprah plays Armstrong’s famous speech after winning the 2005 Tour de France when he challenged fans to believe in the tour.

“I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the skeptics, I’m sorry for you,” he said on the podium. “I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles.”

“Looking at that now, it just seems ridiculous,” Armstrong says. “I’m embarrassed. You can leave with better than that, Lance. That was lame.”

Armstrong says there was more happiness in the process than in winning. He likens using PEDs to pumping up his tires, putting water in his bottles. He says at the time it did not even feel wrong. “It’s scary,” he says. He says he did not feel bad about using drugs. “Even scarier,” he says. He says he did not feel he was cheating. “The scariest,” he says.

Armstrong says he did not know how “big” the story of his drug use was. “I see the anger in people. Betrayal. It’s all there. These are people that supported me, believed in me. BELIEVED me. They have every right to feel betrayed, and it’s my fault,” he says. “I will spend the rest of my life trying to earn back trust and apologize to people.”

Armstrong’s voice is beginning to get shaky in his answers. He is moving about in his chair, and frequently fidgets with his hands. He tends to begin his answers with a short burst of “I’m going to say…” and then lets the words flow freely after he’s spoken for a bit. Oprah, by contrast, remains cool and clear with her questions.

Armstrong addresses his frequently used “never failed a test” denial. “No, I didn’t fail a test. Stuff was retroactively tested in 1999, but that was retroactively. Of the hundreds of tests I took, I passed them because there was nothing in the system.”

Armstrong denies that the Union Cycliste International (UCI) made the test go away after he made a sizable donation. Oprah asks why Armstrong paid the UCI.

“Because they asked me too. This is impossible for me to answer this question and have anybody believe it. I am not a fan of the UCI. It was not payment for a cover up. Are there things that were a little shady, that was not one.”

Oprah is now getting very detailed in her questions, asking about Armstrong’s failed test at the 1999 Tour de France for cortisone. Armstrong’s doctor produced a backdated cortisone script. His former masseuse, Emma O’Reilly, told this to author David Walsh about the positive test. Armstrong publicly went after her for her actions.

Oprah asks about O’Reilly.

“She is one of these people that I have to apologize to,” he says. “She’s one of these people that got run over.”

Oprah asks if he sued Emma O’Reilly.

“To be honest Oprah, we sued so many people… I’m sure we did,” Armstrong says with a bit of a laugh.

Oprah will be asking about Armstrong and his treatment of his enemies next. He had a very public spat with America’s first Tour winner, Greg LeMond, when LeMond chastised him for his relationship with Ferrari.

In the 2005 Larry King interview, Armstrong again went on the offensive against LeMond.

“Obviously, Greg LeMond has made it his life’s work to attack me,” Armstrong said. “I have my passions in life and things I work on that have nothing to do with attacking people. But that’s OK. He’s obsessed with this. I wish him luck. I’m not at all — zero percent — worried about this process. You have to keep in mind that it’s been 10 years of investigation and processes. They have all resulted in nothing. I have nothing to hide. There will always be people who want to pile on.”

The show is now introducing Betsy Andreu, wife of his former teammate Frankie Andreu, who testified that Armstrong said he used a litany of drugs during a meeting with his cancer doctors in 1996. Armstrong publicly lashed out at Frankie and Betsy Andreu in the wake of the testimony.

Oprah asks if Betsy Andreu was telling the truth during the deposition.

“I’m not going to take that on,” he says. I’m laying down on that one.”

“I just assumed the stories would continue for a long time,” he says. “This isn’t an issue of news stories. That’s not why we’re sitting here. We’re sitting here because there was a two-year federal investigation. There’s a man with a gun and a badge and the consequences are serious.”

Armstrong appeared shaky in some of his answers, however he has not cried, nor has he been misty eyed. For a cycling neophyte, Oprah is asking very detailed questions. She obviously did her homework before the interview.

Armstrong says he’d tell Usada, “Guys, give me three days, I’m going to call some people. My family. My mother. My sponsors. My foundation. And tell them what I’m going to do, and I’ll be right there. I wish I could do that, but I can’t.”

In the past few days, the sport of cycling has moved to distance itself from Armstrong. He is not being invited to the Tour de France’s 100th year anniversary this summer. Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme told Agence France-Presse that Armstrong, “is in the past.”

And with that, the interview ends for the day. The preview shows further questions about his children, his mother, and what he’d say to the millions of fans wearing Livestrong bracelets who believe in him.

Last night Lance Armstrong confessed to having used performance-enhancing drugs such as EPO, human growth hormone and testosterone to win his seven Tour de France titles, ending 15 years of denials by the American cyclist. In an hour-and-a-half interview with Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong also admitted to misleading his fans and sponsors, and using his fame and power to silence his critics.

“This is too late, this is too late for probably most people, and that is my fault,” Armstrong said. “I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times. It wasn’t as if I said ‘No’ and then just moved off of it… This story was so perfect for so long.”

Tonight, the conclusion to Armstrong’s three-hour interview airs on the Oprah Winfrey Network at 9 p.m. ET. Based on a short preview clip, Oprah will ask Armstrong about how his doping impacted his sponsors, his children, his mother and the next step in his career.

It’s going to be another big night for the cycling universe. According to the Journal, last night’s broadcast netted the Oprah Winfrey Network 3.2 million viewers. The number is just slightly below Oprah’s March 2012 interview with Whitney Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina.

Armstrong recounts his sponsors dropping him. Nike was first. Trek, Giro helmets, Anheuser-Busch over a couple of days. “Everybody out, still not the most humbling moment,” he says. “In a way I assumed we’d get to that point. The story was getting out of control which was my worst nightmare.”

Armstrong says severing ties to his foundation was the most humbling moment. He first had to step down as chairman and remain on the board. Then a few weeks later they asked him to leave completely. “We need you to consider stepping down for yourself,” he says. “The foundation is like my sixth child. To step aside was big.”

Lots of responses from the cycling world today. America’s first Tour de France champion Greg LeMond was upset with Armstrong’s assertion that a clean cyclist couldn’t win the Tour de France. He told Cyclingnews.com that Armstrong was only an “average” natural talent and attributed his performance to doping. He pointed to himself and American great Andy Hampsten, who won the Giro d’Italia in 1988 and finished fourth at the 1986 and 1992 Tour de France as examples of clean riders who could succeed.

““If Armstrong had given Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton the same stuff he was taking, he would never have won – they would have beaten him,” LeMond said.

“I didn’t see the need for redemption, the remorse of someone who is truly sorry,” he added. “I was impressed by Oprah [Winfrey]’s questions, it was the ideal way to see the real Armstrong. It shed a light on him and I think people could see he is not remorseful.”

Armstrong’s 2005 deposition in his case against SCA promotions is a major talking point for Oprah. She has shown in numerous times now, making Armstrong watch himself lying on record. Armstrong frowns as he watches.

“It’s sick,” he says. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that guy. That is a guy who felt invincible, who was told he was invincible, who truly believed he was invincible. That guy is still there. I’m not going to lie and say I’m in therapy and I feel better.”

Oprah presses further, asking what he’d say to the millions of Livestrong fans who believed.

“I understand your anger,” he says. “Your sense of betrayal. You supported me forever through all of this and you believed and I lied to you. And I’m sorry. I will spend as long as I have to to make amends.”

“The answer is hell yes,” Armstrong says. “I don’t expect it to happen. Not the Tour de France. There are a lot of things I want to do but I can’t. Would I like to run the Chicago Marathon when I’m 50? I would love to do that but I can’t. I’d love the opportunity to be able to compete but it isn’t the reason I’m doing this. I think I deserve it.”

Armstrong says this hasn’t changed the way he sees himself. “This is heavy, this is messy,” he says. He says he’s doing therapy. “Over the course of my life I’ve done it therapy,” he says. “I’ve had a messy life. It’s no excuse.”

Oprah asks if he has real remorse or if its because he got caught.

“Everybody who gets caught is bummed out they got caught. I am only starting,” he says.

One of the most widely tweeted post-interview columns came from ESPN writer Bonnie Ford, who has covered Armstrong for nearly a decade. Ford is in Australia covering the Australian Open, but she called the interview “a typical Lance event.”

“He decided to take aim at hearts and minds rather than making the kind of detailed confession to legal and anti-doping authorities that would have advanced the plot and made a small start on freeing him up to lead the rest of his life,” Ford writes. “It was a delusional move, not to mention an utterly backward one. Armstrong is a toppled despot, a statue pulled off his pedestal, but his legs are still moving reflexively in the rubble. By force of lifetime habit, he’s still trying to shape his own narrative.”

Oprah asks if there were people around him that wanted him to stop lying and doping.

“If I can say one name it’s Kristin [Armstrong's ex wife],” he says. “We have three kids together, they deserve the honest truth. They deserve a dad that is viewed as telling the truth to them and the public.”

Oprah asks if Kristin was aware and if she talked to him about stopping.

“She wasn’t that curious,” he says. “Perhaps she didn’t want to know. She certainly knew. I guess I protected her from that. The thing about her and my doping and this comeback, she was the one person I asked if I could come back.”

“They know a lot,” he says. “They hear in the hallways. Their schools, their classmates have been very supportive. Where you lose control with your kids is when they go out of that space. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.”

Armstrong says he saw Luke Armstrong defending him. Armstrong gets emotional for the first time in the interview. “That’s when I knew I had to tell him,” he says. “He’d never asked me. He trusted me. I heard about it in the hallways.” Armstrong looks down. He’s having a tough time with this question. He says the taunting happened on Instagram. “I had that talk with him just here over the holidays,” he says.

Armstrong replays his discussion with his kids. “I want you to know its true,” he says about the allegations. “They didn’t say much. They just accepted it. I told Luke….” Armstrong gets emotional again. “I said don’t defend me anymore,” he says. “Don’t.”

This is the most emotion we’ve seen from Armstrong during the entire interview. He isn’t quite crying, but he’s pausing frequently to wipe his eyes. “He said I love you, you’re my dad, this won’t change that,” Armstrong says of his son, Luke. “I had expected… Thank god he’s more like Kristin than he is like me.”

“Selfishly yes, realistically… I have to live with that decision,” he says. “The biggest hope was the well being of my children. The older kids need to not be living with this issue in their lives. That isn’t fair. The little ones, they obviously have no idea, but they will learn it. This conversation will live forever. That dumb tweet with the yellow jerseys, that will live forever. I have to get that right as they enter the depth of their lives.”

Armstrong still has fans. According to his online account for Strava — an application which catalogs a person’s bike rides and training runs — Armstrong went on a 51-mile bike ride in Kailua Kona, Hawaii yesterday. His Strava followers wrote positive messages on his account. “Hey Lance, triple kudos for Oprah,” read one comment. “Well done in the interview, Lance. You were my hero, and was angry and felt betrayed. But tonight you earned back my respect,” reads another. “Good for you Lance. Glad you did the right thing,” is another.

Oprah asks Armstrong if he tried to make a $250,000 payment to Travis Tygart and Usada.

“No, that is not true,” Armstrong says. “In the 1,000-page reasoned decision, why wasn’t that in there? It’s a pretty big story. Oprah, it’s not true. Nobody. I had no knowledge of that, I’ve asked around, and nobody.”

“I’ve lost all future income,” Armstrong says. “You could look at those two days when all the [sponsors] left. That was a $75 million day.” Armstrong looks upward as he says this, his voice shaking. “Probably never coming back.”

Armstrong says he’s been to a dark place. “I didnt’ know if I was going to live for a month, six months, a year. It’s helped me now,” he says. “This is not a good time but it’s not the worst part of my life. You cannot compare this to an advanced diagnosis, 50 50 odds. That sets the bar. It’s close — but I’m an optimist.”

Armstrong’s denial that he tried to pay Usada is yet another strong denial of allegations made against him. Last night Armstrong denied that he made a donation to the UCI in 2001 to make a positive EPO test from the Tour of Switzerland go away. Both Floyd Landis and Hamilton allege this took place.

Michael McCann at Sports Illustrated writes that Armstrong’s interview could backfire if his assertions are proved to be lies. Usada and Wada, McCann writes, won’t take him seriously if he’s caught in his lies.

“If he provides sworn testimony to USADA that contradicts or undermines his remarks to Winfrey, USADA won’t believe him and won’t reduce his penalty,” McCann wrote. “The possibility of criminal charges should give Armstrong the most concern, though the lengthy passage of time from most of his wrongful conduct advantages him.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I do not know the outcome here. I’m getting comfortable with that. That would have driven me crazy in the past. I’m deeply sorry for what I did. I can say that thousands of time and it may never be enough to get back.”

Oprah wants to know if Lance is a better human being because this happened.

“Without a doubt. Without a doubt,” he says. “When I was diagnosed I was a better human being, and then I lost my way. This is a second time… I can’t lose my way again. Only I can control that. I’m in no position to make promises. The biggest challenge the rest of my life is to not slip up again, to not lose sight of what I gotta do.”

One more response worth noting. Betsy Andreu, wife of Armstrong’s former teammate Frankie Andreu, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper last night she was furious that Armstrong refused to discuss Oprah’s question about the 1996 hospital-room scene, when Armstrong reportedly confessed to using multiple banned substances. Armstrong publicly and privately bashed the Andreu’s for testifying about the scene.

“If the hospital room didn’t happen, just say it didn’t happen. But he won’t do it because it did happen. And if this is his way of saying ‘I just don’t want to go there, ok, we’ll give it to her’, that’s not good enough. That’s not being transparent, that’s not being completely honest. That’s skirting the issue….I want to believe that Lance wants to come clean, but this is giving me an indication that I can’t.”

So there it is, the two-day interview ends. Armstrong admits to having doped, lied and threatened his peers. He continues to deny other charges that he tried to influence officials. The big question that is yet to be seen is whether Armstrong meets with Wada to testify under oath. That action could potentially lighten his lifetime ban. But officials would need him to give more information on others in the sport, specifically the UCI officials, team backers and other riders who may have helped him cheat to win.

Comments (5 of 50)

Lance's attorney Mark Fabiani, was Clinton's attorney during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations.
Oprah and Obama are good friends.
Lance gives Oprah a tell all interview.
The Federal Attorney's office announced it isn't filing charges against Lance.
Add a 40-50 million dollar payoff, and Lance has clear motive.
I certainly hope that this situation is not as it seems. American tax payers are suffering.

7:32 pm January 21, 2013

Anonymous wrote:

Lance.... You have lived the majority of your life cheating and hurting others. I don't believe the big guy is saving you a spot. You might want to realize this and act accordingly and give peace to those you have hurt..

10:32 pm January 18, 2013

Colleen wrote:

Lance surrounded himself with people that he could buy off. He bought their slience, character, honor and truth. He has practiced these toxic relationships for over a decade. He was punished far beyond the other riders because he is a bully. But let us get real, these are grown men making grown up deciisons. They all saw their money ticket in their sport for the first time. I think they looked at their odds and said we will be rich men if we get caught or not. I think everyone on Lance's team should be punished more than six months. The authorities are hanging Lance as the leader in the largest doping program in sports. Really? It took a team of people and pay offs to pull this doping business off. We can hang Lance up I think it is just the tip of the problem of doping in his sport. This man has serious character flaws and cannot possibly begin to understand what a mess he has created. He needs to shut up, pull his kids close, pay back all his debts and ask God to enter into his soul and change his life.

9:47 pm January 18, 2013

Stephani wrote:

I've raised a teenager and no 13 year old I've ever known would say those words--no way. He's a lyin' still...

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